


The Ancestors

by Tabata



Series: Leoverse [57]
Category: Glee
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-18
Updated: 2020-03-18
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:21:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23201635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tabata/pseuds/Tabata
Summary: It's a great privilege to be here today to witness the final moments of a Master Keeper.
Series: Leoverse [57]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/30541





	The Ancestors

**Author's Note:**

> If you have read one or more of the Leoverse stories, you know that they're either what ifs or a AUs of our canon. What you might not know is that they are all part of a bigger multiverse. Pete, who has already been a character of a few stories here and there, is actually a keeper (i.e. sort of timelord) in charge of mantaining the multiverse alive.  
> Reading [The Infernal Device](http://archiveofourown.org/works/9815612) might help you with this one.
> 
> written for: cow-t #10  
> prompt: Ancestors

Unlike his friends, Pete has always liked theoretic lessons. Maybe because sitting in a classroom and listening to someone who is explaining something does in no way imply the risk of you being stuck in a time loop, get lost in a random doomed universe and several others unpleasant ways to die an horrible slow death away from your friends and family forever.

His favorite lessons were those on the ancestors.

Keepers are long-lived but they are not immortal and when they finally die, their essence goes back to the primal energy that fuels the planet and, consequently, everything connected to it. Their life is so long that the moment of their departure is never really sad as they are well prepared for it. Death is a very long and very slow process that starts long before they actually die.

It's a great privilege to be here today to witness the final moments of a Master Keeper.

The old man is lying on a bed near the fireplace to keep him warm. He's old – older than any person Pete has ever seen – but he looks at peace. What was left of his family has visited him in the past few days and he said his goodbyes already. His final moment will be one of recollection, so nobody is allowed in the room except another Keeper who will stay with him 'till the end to help his life force go when it needs to go.

The Master Keeper chose Pete for the task.

He specifically asked for him among hundreds of others, despite his young age and his relatively limited experience in comparison to some of the others. Pete didn't even know the man was aware of his presence on the planet, so the request was exciting but also extremely unexpected.

Pete takes a step inside the room. There's an unnatural but comfortable silence inside, the air is heavy with what is about to happen. It's like the room is holding his breath in wait. “Come closer, boy,” the man barely moves anymore, but his voice is still strong.

“Are you comfortable, sir?” Pete asks.

“As comfortable as I'll ever be,” the man smiles. “I've already started to go, it won't take much longer.”

Pete tenses a little. “Are you in pain?”

The man shakes his head. “You're scared,” he says, knowingly. “You shouldn't be.”

“I'm not really sure what it's going to happen.”

The man nod, slowly. “Sit down,” he says, gesturing vaguely towards the chair next to his bed. “I lived a long life, Pete■■■■■■■■■, it's time for me to do my part and go back to where it all started. It's not going to be painful nor sad, it's going to be like going home.”

“What are you feeling?” 

“Peace, mostly. It's like when you close your eyes and you can feel the energy run through you and connect you to the planet and the rest of the universe, but stronger and more fulfilling. I _am_ that energy now. Do me a favor, will you? Grab that transponder over there.”

Pete picks up the little rounded sphere and places it in the man's slightly trembling hand. His fingers close securely around it and, at the press of a button, a constellation seems to explode into life and expands inside the room. Hundreds of thousands of tiny little lights start pulsating and then grow into spheres as they move harmoniously to connect to their branches, their branches connecting to the trunk until everything finally assembles into a tree.

“Your tree-universe,” Pete breathes in awe. He has never seen one so extensive. Pete's universe is nothing but a fraction of this one. It's both reassuring _and_ scary to know that his universe might have such a long road ahead of it.

“Yes,” the man chuckles. “You will excuse it if it's not in its best condition. It is shrinking too along with me. Some of its outermost parts are already gone and its pulse has slowed down in the past few years.”

Tree-Universes usually die way before their keepers. Sometimes they just collapse or they get destroyed by a chain reaction started by a doomed universe, but mostly they come to their natural conclusion, they stop producing new instances, those there are already there just live out their life and then slowly the tree starts to shut down until it's time to hand it back to the life force that created it.

It's rare but not unheard of that a tree-universe stays with his keeper until the very end.

“I love this universe,” the master keeper says, looking lovingly at all the pulsing spheres. Pete has no doubt that the man can tell a single universe from the other just looking at them, because that's what he himself can do with his own. “I grew with it as much as it grew with me. It was a great adventure and an even greater pain in the ass. I had some pretty complicated constants who made my life a living hell sometimes.”

“I can understand it perfectly, sir.”

The old man smiles at him. “I know, that is why I chose you,” he confess. “I've studied your tree-universe and the way you're handling it. The task that has been given to you is not easy, kid. Love is an impossible force to control. It always wants to do whatever it likes.”

Pete wishes his friends were here so he could tell them 'I told you so'. They are always mocking him because they think his constants are easy to maintain but they're definitely not. Blaine and Leo are anything but easy. “Sometimes it's hard. Everything that could possibly go wrong goes wrong,” he sighs. “I risk to lose something every day.”

“And do you?”

“No, because my tree-universe has the tendency to fix itself one way or another. Sometimes I wait—“

“—until the last possible second because you feel that cutting down a branch is not needed, even if all the evidence point to the contrary.”

“Yes!” Pete looks at him in shock. “How do you know?”

The master keeper laughs. “Mine has the same character. It's stubborn and it wants to do things its own way. In time I've learned to trust it. I suggest you do the same. There are hundreds of thousands of keepers' lives running in your tree-universe's core. And each of us is programmed to care for the universes, in life or death. Let us guide you, trust your tree.”

“I will.”

“Now be kind and watch over it until it's gone. I'm very tired.”

Then the Master Keeper closes his eyes one last time.


End file.
